A-Rod gets his 3000th hit! I bow to thee!!

Disrespect

A summary of the media's disrespect for Alex Rodriguez (courtesy of BTF)

1996: 9.31 WAR, just behind Griffey (crazy credit for defense to Griffey that year) but 2nd in MVP to Juan Gonzalez despite a higher OPS, scoring 52 more runs, and playing SS instead of a poor RF.

1997: despite a 846 OPS and 5.6 WAR he didn't get even a 10th place vote while Tino Martinez came in 2nd with a 948 OPS at 1B and 5.08 WAR. Even a guy with negative WAR got 2 votes (Deivi Cruz for Detroit)

1998: 919 OPS, 8.50 WAR but Gonzalez gets his 2nd MVP while A-Rod comes in 9th. Yes, ninth! He even had a 40 HR, 40 SB season that year. He led in WAR for hitters by nearly a full win over Jeter (3rd place).

1999: 943 OPS, 4.76 WAR (injured) and 15th place, about right for that season

2000: 1.026 OPS, 10.29 WAR and 3rd place behind 2 1B who cannot field (Giambi and Thomas)

2001: 1.021 OPS, 8.36 WAR and 6th place, Ichiro's year.

2002: 1.015 OPS, 8.81 WAR 2nd place to another SS who had a 861 OPS and 5.6 WAR (Tejada) who got it due to his team having that amazing 20 game winning streak

2003: Voters give in and let him win at last - He is 2.2 WAR ahead of all other hitters (Pedro had a great year again, Loaiza also had more WAR than non-ARod hitters) but he gets just 6 first place votes while a guy with 3.12 WAR (Shannon Stewart) gets 3 first place votes (yes, voters can be pretty dumb).

2004: In NY now, 4th in WAR but 14th in voting

2005: Wins again, led in WAR by over 2 wins so hard to ignore but 16 first place votes while Ortiz who hit worse than A-Rod by almost any measure (Avg/OBP/Slg/HR/SB) gets 11 first place votes

2006: poor year ('just' 4.46 WAR)

2007: Wins again, led in WAR by nearly 2 wins again, gets all but 2 first place votes

2008: 6.8 WAR, 2nd among hitters but 8th in MVP voting

2009 to now: 4.2 is his best WAR since and hasn't finished higher than 10th in MVP voting.

The Yanks are Back

Thank you Lord! Arod is back in the Yankee lineup for the first time since July 24th. They cut his rehab stint short and recalled him because they needed him, the presence of "The Captain" be damned. Since he went on the DL the Yanks are 18-18 and saw their lead in the division trimmed from seven games to two. I know they sometimes need to give the appearance of fallibility so that fans in other cities mistakenly think they have a shot at a ring, but enough is enough. Time to start doing what Yankees do best: Just Win Baby.